Are elk hunting and deer hunting the same? No! If you’ve been hunting deer most of your life, you’re trained in three things: caution, patience and silence. Now when it comes to hunting elk, they like to hear noise. You’re smart to make noise so break some sticks or smash some trees! Deer like to dash away if they hear the slightest noise, whereas elk aren’t that phased by hearing sounds.
Elk and Deer Hunting Differences
Oh, and with elk, it’s okay to move in sight. Elk have much worse vision than deer do. It’s not unusual to kill an elk while it’s looking right at you! If you’re properly camouflaged in a good pattern with a good backdrop, elk will have a hard time noticing you’re there and a threat. Even a little movement on your part may not scare them.
Elk are usually on the move, covering all sorts of ground, so you’re probably going to have to do a lot of hiking to find their herds, whereas deer tend to live their entire lives inside a square mile, and they’re pretty much spread evenly across a landscape. Think of it this way: if you’re a deer hunter, you’d likely return to the exact spot you shot a deer last year because there’s a good chance you’d find another deer there to shoot and kill– with elk, however, that’s not the case. They’ve moved on to a different location. If there are 100 acres of elk habitat, chances are you’ll find most elk in just 1 square mile of it!
Finally, with deer hunting you’re taught to stay still and not to be too aggressive, but with elk, it’s the opposite– it’s fine to be aggressive in the way you think and move in order to get what you want.
Tioga Ranch in Pennsylvania offers guided elk (and deer) hunts; For info, call 570-835-5341.